My Career Objectives

Kajanan Nithiyananthan -

Summary

  • Major objectives:
    • Money
    • Positive influence, emotional connection and satisfaction
    • Large-scale impact
  • Minor objectives:
    • Curiosity-quenching
    • Variety
    • Lifelong growth
    • Camraderie
    • Flexibility and autonomy

My Major Objectives of Work

When I think about my career as a whole, there are 3 major objectives that I'm looking for it to satisfy:

  1. Money
  2. Positive influence, emotional connection and satisfaction
  3. Large-scale impact

Now, I specify career here because I don't necessarily think that there's any single job or line of work that could provide me with all of the above at once. Therefore, I want to combine multiple lines of work to craft a holistic career that allows me to achieve these objectives.

So why have I chosen the above 3 as my major objectives?

Money

Anyone who doesn't think about money when crafting their career is either incredibly enlightened or incredibly stupid.

Money is extremely important in this modern age because it buys freedom. Freedom from money-related worries and freedom of time.

Freedom is one of my top 3 core values.

I'd like to have the freedom to do whatever I like, whenever I like. And a lot of the things that I want to do but I don't are because of a lack of money.

I'd love to buy a cup of coffee every day from the hospital, but it's financially irresponsible for me to do that with my current (lack of) income.

I'd love to pay to build a shed in the backyard like my Amma's been wanting for the past few years, but I just don't have the money to do it.

I'd love to take a few days off to go camping in the Warrumbungles and go hiking and do some landscape photography, but I've got med school placement to attend.

Money is just such a powerful tool, that I want to have enough of it that I never really have to think about it again, thereby removing a point of stress from my life.

But now, how do we optimise for money?

Trading time for money by working high-paying jobs is one (inefficient) way to make money.

The efficient way to make money is through business and entrepreneurship, which is why I have been immersing myself in these areas over the past few years.

Now, in addition to these selfish reasons underpinning my desire to accumulate money, as we'll see later on, money can also be an incredibly influential tool in making a difference in others' lives.

Positive Influence, Emotional Connection & Satisfaction

There's no better feeling than when you do something for someone that truly helps them and then you are rewarded with a token of their appreciation, whether that be a genuine smile or simple thank you. It's heart-warming.

Those moments are what help pull you through the shit times, when you're stressed, overworked and exhausted.

Many careers do not provide this sense of gratification, but Medicine is one of the few that does.

The emotional high of helping someone and feeling appreciated for it selfishly helps me feel good about the work that I'm doing.

This is a major reason why I want to continue working in Medicine.

If I was purely to optimise for large-scale impact or money, I think I'd lose what grounds me and I also wouldn't feel the emotional connection to my work that I do when helping a patient.

That's why emotional connection is an integral part of a career, to me.

Large-Scale Impact

One of the cons of a career in Medicine is that your impact is quite small-scale. You're dealing with individuals and as a result, there's only so many individuals that you can help in a finite period of time.

As this 80,000 Hours article suggests, the average doctor will only 'save' around 20 lives throughout their career.

Not that many, hey?

But not to worry, large-scale impact can be made in many ways.

One of these is through using your voice to help people at scale.

The best way to do this in the modern day is through social media.

A major reason why I make YouTube videos is that it has the potential to get my message across to a much bigger audience than I otherwise might be exposed to if I was limited by geographical boundaries.

I can share tips about lifestyle design and self-development that have helped me become a more balanced and well-rounded person and in doing so help others seeking similar goals to achieve them.

Moreover, I can use the platform to share my perspective on issues I feel passionately about and in doing so educate my audience and even inspire them to join me in taking action.

Another way to make large-scale impact is through leveraging money.

GiveWell has found that a life can be saved by donating US$4,500 to one of these malarial prevention organisations.

That means, the equivalent impact of a career in Medicine can be brought about by US$90,000 worth of charitable donations to these organisations.

Therefore, one of the other benefits of optimising for money is that if you contribute more to these charitable organisations, you can have a larger-scale impact than if you worked at a lower-income job, even if you were helping people on a day-to-day basis.

But simply donating money to charity is just numbers on a page. I personally don't feel any emotional high of saving a life from donating to charity.

That's why I want a blend of Medicine to provide me with a sense of positive impact and emotional connection, business to provide money and charitable donations and social media to provide the large-scale impact.

My Minor Objectives of Work

In addition to the above, there are also a bunch of minor objectives that I would want my career to satisfy too:

  • Variety
  • Quench my curiosity
  • Lifelong growth
  • Camraderie
  • Flexibility and autonomy
  • Fun

These factors are no less important than the ones above, but I've more deeply internalised these to be part of my core values that I know when a pathway doesn't align with these.

Therefore, I feel that in most avenues of work that I plan to pursue, these 'low-level' objectives will be achieved and thus these are not my major focus.

At this stage, these are the factors that I'm considering in crafting my ideal career.

If there are other things that you think are worth me considering, I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch on Twitter.